


part of you lives here

by TheSoliloquy



Series: some lies are love [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Major Character Injury, Mutual Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoliloquy/pseuds/TheSoliloquy
Summary: When he looks back on this moment later, much later, he sees this as the moment she ceases to be Cat’s daughter.(She does not cry for her aunt. Petyr sleeps easier in an empty bed).There's a picture in Petyr's head and he won't paint it alone.or: Different choices are made in the Eyrie that change the path to Winterfell, and turn a girl into a lady into a Queen.
Relationships: Petyr Baelish/Myranda (non-con), Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark
Series: some lies are love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856983
Comments: 13
Kudos: 121





	part of you lives here

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the moments at the end of Season 4 where Sansa is gearing up to manipulate Petyr... only for the writers to drop it. Obligatory age-up of Sansa for the sake of my conscience, let's stretch the timeline and call her 20. I'm mainly here for the sake of whump and character development.
> 
> There'll be a second part to this, attention span allowing . This is only half of the story as I first imagined it.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Non-con is explicit in section 46, so skip that section if you need. Non-con is alluded to throughout the fic otherwise.
> 
> As ever, your feedback is fuel.

I don’t care. I love you anyhow. It is too late to turn you out of my heart. Part of you lives here.  
**Anne Sexton, A Self Portrait in Letters**

1.

When he looks back on this later, much later, he sees it as the moment she ceases to be Cat’s daughter.

(Sansa does not cry for her aunt. Petyr sleeps easier in an empty bed).

2.

“I know what you want.”

“Do you?”

She looks at him then, with clear Tully eyes, and Petyr sees nothing of her mother in her, only her father, hands around his neck, only her uncle, sword cold between his ribs.

( _He’s just a boy._ Cat had met his eyes as he fell).

Sansa says nothing.

When she joins them in the High Hall, he has his answer.

3.

She becomes bold.

Petyr’s lessons remain much the same. _Clean hands, always_ , he tells her. _Pair wine with lies. Know how to move a man_.

With each lesson now follows a question, each asked with the same impatience. How is a man moved? Who can be moved? What if they cannot?

 _Joffrey and Lysa could not be moved_ , he does not say, _and what happened to them?_

She will learn the answer herself in time if this eagerness continues and her patience grows. She asks for books and he obliges; books on politics, Westeros, nobility. A book of poetry when she insists on lighter reading, although he is glad when it doesn’t please her.

“I don’t enjoy the songs anymore.” Is her reply at his questioning, and he rewards her with three more crates of lemons, watches her lick the juice from her fingers after dinner.

They sit together in his solar late into the night, far past propriety if she were anything more than his bastard daughter, debating and questioning all that she has read and every lesson she can glean from her books.

Her arguments become tighter, her voice stronger. She laughs at his witticisms and returns them with her own.

“Perhaps we could flee Westeros and become mummers, my lord, if our plans fail us.”

Petyr is not offended.

She leans forward and takes his cup with a sweet smile, and he watches the bob of her throat as she drinks.

4.

Their nightly lessons become interesting with a single request.

“I propose a game.” She tells him.

He waits, eyebrows raised, as she pours wine into a cup. Only the one cup; they’ve been sharing for weeks now.

“A truth,” She takes a sip, “for a kiss.”

Petyr smirks, slouches low in his chair, languid and intrigued. The wine has made her lips plump and red, and without thinking his tongue darts out to moisten his own. He sees Sansa’s eyes track the movement.

Oh, he will have to watch out for this one.

“Is a truth not worth more, sweetling?”

A narrowing of her eyes, unimpressed, and he decides to humour her, spreads his hands wide and leans back, steeples his fingers in lap. _No harm in being curious_ is the lie he tells himself.

Sansa rounds the table and perches back on its edge, looks down at him, cup in hand. Petyr waits.

“Which King do you serve?”

An easy one. Doubtless she already knows the answer and is testing.

“None.”

She puts the cup down and leans forward, lips brushing against his in a kiss chaste enough to make a septa proud. Petyr chuckles when she leans back but says nothing. He might bore of this game before her if this is all she plans.

“Did you plan to kill my Aunt?”

“You think I would plan something so poorly done? Have some faith, sweetling.”

“That’s not an answer.” His own words parrot back at him.

Petyr smiles. “I did not plan it.”

Another kiss, as clinical as the last.

“Why did you save me from King’s Landing?”

“I owed it to your mother to keep you safe.”

Sansa eyes him warily. “You’re lying.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Not the whole truth, then.”

“Perhaps you should have better explained the rules of this game.”

At the roll of her eyes Petyr laughs again. She doesn’t move any closer. His lips are warm and taste of wine.

“Tell me.” She demands, and something like _want_ twists in Petyr’s heart.

(There’s a picture in his head and must he paint it alone?)

“You are the eldest daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully. If you wish it, the North will rally behind you.”

“Behind _you_ , you mean?”

Petyr purses his lips and cocks his head. “I believe I answered your question.”

This time she braces her hand on his chest, fingers flexing against the silk, and the weight of her touch surprises him in the instant before her lips touch his. He’s sure she can feel his heart fluttering beneath her palm, the quickening of his pulse as she holds the kiss.

When, finally, she pulls back, just a little, Petyr holds his breath as if to hold the moment. Tully eyes bear into his. Her words ghost against his mouth.

“What have you been putting in Sweetrobin’s drink?”

Silence.

Petyr feels the unmistakable shift of a man being moved.

5.

Sansa has engraved her name onto Lord Arryn’s heart.

She is young and beautiful and kind and, most importantly, a woman. The death of Petyr’s wench of a wife _(a tragic loss, may the gods keep her)_ has left a gap in Sweetrobin’s life in the shape of a mother, and Sansa- _Alayne-_ fills that gap nicely.

Petyr would be proud if he hadn’t taught her too well.

Already he can feel the boy pulling away towards the tangle of her arms, her cooing and her soft words.

It won't be hard to pull apart those ties, to be sure. There are many ways to turn blood against blood as well he knows, except he's been blinded by her pliancy and now it’s too late to untangle their fates without removing Sansa from the board completely. A move, admittedly, that Littlefinger would not hesitate to make.

Petyr, on the other hand…

She isn’t her mother, no, there’s no doubt in that, but there is enough of Cat in her to make his chest ache, enough to keep him at his desk late into the night, re-threading Littlefinger deeper and deeper into his flesh.

It’s a mask fifteen years in the making and he fears she might one day tear it from him completely.

6.

Their game continues the next night, and the next, unannounced.

She becomes brazen, less allowing of his evasions.

Petyr’s lips grow cold.

7.

“You lied to save your dear _uncle_.” He laughs in the face of her blackmail and the anger is bright in her eyes. “Tell me, sweetling, does the noble Bronze Yohn take kindly to liars?”

“More kindly than to murderers.”

“And why would he believe you?”

“I am Sansa Stark.” The girl draws herself up in her chair, slight, and pale, and black as a raven. Petyr finds himself missing her old Tully look; it's occurred to him that the dye is a move against him, a denial of his desire. ( _I know what you want)._

He only shrugs in response, dismissive.

Sansa leans forward and- _gods_ , is there fury more beautiful?

“Who will the Lords of the Vale believe?” Her words are clipped, “The daughter of Eddard Stark, a war hero who grew in these halls, or a whoremonger who grew beneath their feet?”

 _Insolent girl_. Harsher words have been said of him from harsher lips. He won’t deny the heat it stirs in him but Petyr’s ego is not a thing easily bruised. She’s disappointed by his reaction, or lack of it, and he gifts her with a mocking smile.

“I tire of this game,” He quips, “Allow me a turn. What if I were to throw you through the moon door and have done with it?”

Sansa’s face darkens. It’s a terrible expression on a youthful face.

“Then Lord Arryn will throw you after me.”

 _What has she told him?_ For half a breath Petyr feels like a ship in the face of a storm.

And then he rises to his feet. She stiffens as he rounds the desk, but he does nothing more than lean down with a mocking flourish and press a quick kiss to her lips.

“Well done, sweetling.”

8.

She asks for no promises, says from him they mean nothing.

The words shouldn’t hurt and he pretends they don’t.

She is a golden silhouette against the fire, a vision, but he stares only at his cup in her hand.

“Leave Sweetrobin be.” She tells him.

“I will not marry Harold Harding.” She seethes.

And then, soft, pleading, as she gazes down at his languid form. “What do you _want_?”

He looks at her then, grasping desperately onto his mask with both hands.

“I thought you knew what I wanted.”

“I was wrong.”

“No. You weren’t.”

There is defeat in her shoulders. Or frustration, perhaps. Petyr stands and moves towards her, slowly, fingers reaching for the cup. She is careful not to touch him when he takes it from her.

 _What do I want?_ It has never been clearer to him.

“The iron throne.” He leans forward, “And you by my side.”

Sansa’s hand on his chest stops him. She stares at his throat for a few heartbeats.

“It’s not what I want.”

He expects it. The loss is no less bitter. He has offered up his life for firmer rejections, perhaps this time he will learn.

“What _do_ you want?”

A pause. Her hand is still on his chest.

“Winterfell.”

9.

Their plans clutter across the realm, threads pulling at different kingdoms, different minds, different pieces. Many were sown by Petyr himself, long ago, abd they tick along with every move of the board. Others are newer: deceits and trickeries lain out before him by Sansa.

He is proud.

(And troubled).

“You realise these plans hang on your promise?” He asks her, one morning.

They walk the Eyrie’s gardens together, as they do every day, and her arm tucks into his as the snow gives way to mud. She has grown more in the weeks since her aunt’s death than she had in all her time at King’s Landing, a sureness setting into the curve of her shoulders.

“Better my promise than yours.” At Petyr’s silence, she looks at him sidelong, “You don’t trust the word of a Stark, my Lord?”

She doesn't call him by his given name, even now, after all their trials, and it irks him. He's certain it will change in time.

Petyr flashes her a winning smile and lies through his teeth.

“It’s not you I don’t trust, Sweetling.”

10.

She stands at his shoulder as he seals the letters.

One to a wolf. One to a stag. One to a whore.

And later, when he is sure Sansa is asleep, another to a lion.

11.

Arya Stark arrives in the Eyrie to great fanfare.

It's all arranged with no small amount of dramatic flair, of course.

Sweetrobin himself pulls Sansa- _Alayne-_ to stand beside him on the Lord’s dais and demands for her the courtesy she is owed. Petyr folds into the shadows of the High Court and watches lordly confusion, hears whispers of _bastard_ and _honour,_ takes note of every slight.

The boy is surprisingly adept at keeping to script, far more talented a puppet than his mother.

“This is mine own cousin, Sansa Stark!”

Two maids had spent hours washing out the dye while Petyr paced and brooded, and now, as Sansa throws back her hood, gasps fill the room at the sight of red Tully hair. The spit of Lysa's, in fact, or as Lysa's had been when she was younger and and sweeter and _tolerable_.

Little Robin continues.

“My Lord Stepfather rescued her from King's Landing and brought her here to me,” Here heads turn to seek out the Lord Baelish, but Petyr slinks back further, “As well as another.”

At the flick of a hand in strides Ser Lothor, his arm lent to a girl, pretty, short, and brown of hair.

He'd made certain that none in the Vale has ever met the younger Stark girl, or at the least do not remember her face. So far as Petyr knows _he_ is the last to have seen her, dining with Tywin Lannister, and anyone clever enough to trick the old lion is like to continue tricking their way through the war, or so he tells Sansa. With any luck, wild little Arya has left the realm with that dancing teacher she so admires.

“Arya Stark, second daughter of Eddard Stark.”

Here little Robin pauses. For days now Petyr has sent the girl to Robin, allowed them to bond, encouraged Robin’s attention to shift from one Stark to a supposed other. Young Jeyne Poole has learnt seduction well from his whores, even the sort that may ensnare a childs affections.

“I am to wed Lady Arya at the week’s end. It is time the Vale joined this war.”

Uproar. There is no sight sweeter than Yohn Royce’s reddening face, livid as expected, powerless as planned. Amongst the din, Sansa Stark escorts Lord Arryn down from his dais and places his hand in Jeyne’s.

She looks at Petyr then, eyes piercing shadow to meet his for a single brief moment, before she turns and kisses her sister.

12.

Little Lord Arryn and Arya Stark are married in the eyes of the Seven.

 _Will he suck on her teats, too?_ Petyr keeps his jests to himself.

Queue rapturous applause. Adoration. Declarations of fealty. He watches their plans take flight on ravens’ wings.

That night, Sansa comes to him in his solar.

 _(What has love to do with marriage?_ Those had been the words of Hoster Tully once, spoken to a boy abed with fever and grief. Petyr is not that boy. He’s climbed the rungs of Westeros to ensure it.)

The North for her hand. It seems a fair trade.

It doesn’t stop the ache in his chest when she seals her promise with a kiss.

Their betrothal is their secret for now, both for her sake and his. Petyr is an amicable man, to be sure, but not well loved by the proud Lords of the Vale. It would not do to shake their newfound loyalty to House Stark nor throw suspicion on the Lord Protector.

Petyr is made regent until little Robin comes of age, years from now. In truth they have only until the true Arya Stark declares herself.

More than enough time to win a war.

13.

As expected, the Northern houses abandon Stannis.

Petyr carries the replies direct to Sansa’s chambers, seals unbroken. Mormont. Umber. Manderly.

He studies her over the rim of their cup as she reads them aloud, and with each pledge the brightness in her eyes flares. When Sansa finishes the last he sinks down into the chair opposite and spreads his hands. _Look, Sweetling, see how they move?_

“Don’t look so smug, my lord.” There is mischief in the Lady Stark’s eyes. “Best you hide that smile when we join my northmen.”

“You wound me, my lady. I thought you much liked my smile.”

“They’ve heard more tales of Littlefinger than of Petyr Baelish.” She is not amused.

Littlefinger leans forward and flashes her a wicked smile.

“Then it is Littlefinger they shall meet. It would not do to dismiss a reputation as useful as mine.”

Her laughter sounds like wind chimes. Petyr wishes to hear it again and again.

14.

Their nightly visits end the day they ride for Gulltown.

Bronze Yohn Royce is a constant presence by Sansa’s side, either by honour’s sake for the true Lady of Winterfell or through lingering loyalties to her Lord Father. Petyr had called him Lysa’s rock once, as barefaced a lie as any he’s told; if anything the man is a boulder to be pushed in the sea. But the flattery has wormed its way into the old man’s pride.

He holds no trust in Petyr, still, though Petyr has been nothing but the very image of a genial Lord Protector, all smiles and praise and generosity. _Lord Eddard would have been glad to have you at his daughter’s side, my Lord. There is no blood more noble than yours, my Lord. (What colour is your noble blood, my Lord?)_

The man places too much stock in honour. Just as Eddard Stark had done, and Brandon before him, Hoster Tully and Jon Arryn, all of them dead and buried as Petyr Baelish lingers, self-proclaimed champion of their kin.

Oh, the thought of it all amuses him greatly.

He humours Bronze Yohn and places a wall between himself and Sansa, though it pains him so.

Their tents are a respectable distance apart, as are their rooms in Gulltown, and their cabins after Petyr has arranged the Vale army passage to White Harbour, the colours of Stark and Arryn flying high upon the sails.

He wonders if she notices the distance. Perhaps she even misses him.

In any case Petyr does not visit her. At council meetings he lurks at the fringes, as is his wont, speaking only when conversation strays from his plans, issuing gentle nudges and leading questions to guide strategy. When they sup at House Grafton he does not presume to sit next to her. He listens to her speak, marvels at her charm and grace, but does not engage her himself in anything more than pleasantries.

Oft times he catches her watching him, though she says nothing.

Petyr’s lips grow colder, the ache stronger. _She will come to me_ , he tells himself, _if only to pretend all is well_.

And she does.

15.

A week after setting sail there’s a soft knock on his cabin door.

Petyr has been up and dressed since dawn, scratching out letters, reading missives, balancing ledgers, waiting and hoping for the sound. It's Sansa, of course. He suppresses the relief and graces her with a polite smile.

“Lady Sansa.”

She is radiant even in the shadows of the ship. It was not so long ago Petyr had spirited her from King’s Landing on a ship much the same, and she had spent that voyage sick and confined to her cabins. Not so now.

“Lord Baelish.” Sansa greets, demure, “We were just passing the Fingers. I thought you might want to see your home.”

A good pretence. Petyr smirks.

“Apologies, my lady, but I have seen too much of my home as it is. I daresay the rock and sheep shit looks much the same.”

She studies him with her Tully eyes.

“You have been most absent this voyage, my lord.”

“There are many matters that require my attention.”

“Such as?”

He laughs. “Someone must keep track of our supplies.”

A furtive glance into the room behind him. “May I see?”

Petyr has set up his desk precisely for this occasion, a perfect and controlled cluttern . On one corner lies a letter from Cersei, half-buried with the Lannister seal peeking out precisely.

He steps aside and sweeps an arm in invitation, closing the door behind her, unlocked. Excepting Sansa’s own cabin, Petyr’s is the largest on the ship. Even then it is sparsely furnished, not much more than a bed, a desk, and a washbasin. The desk is pushed against the wall beneath the porthole so as to better use the daylight, and when Sansa wanders over she looks out at sea rather than at his work.

Her skin is smooth in the dim light. She’s taken to wearing the muted colours of the North, her dress a deep burgundy beneath a fur cloak of grey, held in place by a silver direwolf pin gifted to her by Petyr. Somber colours, they are, and ones he is not used to seeing her in.

Yet, it does nothing to dampen her beauty. Her red hair is haloed by the golden sun as she turns to face him.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Straight to it, then. Petyr allows himself a smirk, aware it will serve to make her angry. It does. Her brows furrow and arms cross tightly below her breasts. _Why does she cross her arms just so?_ He forces his eyes away.

“Had we not agreed to take the North together?” Such a sweet voice, she has, so cold.

“We had.” He admits, and spreads his hands in appeasement, “And we will. But you said yourself, your northerners will bear no love for me. The men must see you as a leader in your own right.”

“That’s not a reason. Leaders have advisors. The Vale is yours. Why would I not seek your counsel?”

Petyr huffs. She can interpret it as a laugh if she so wishes. “Are you angry with me, Sansa?”

“You _know_ I’m angry with you. You were waiting for me to come to you.” She turns to the desk and snatches up the letter from Cersei Lannister, “Did you think I wouldn’t see this? Or maybe you planned that I would.”

He says nothing. _Gods, she is cleverer by the day._ But she doesn’t see through him, not really; he can see the uncertainty in her gait even as her eyes burn. She doesn’t know whether to trust him. _Good, Sweetling. You are learning._

He has no plan for what happens next.

With two quick steps Sansa's lips crash against his.

It’s a possessive act, hands fisting into his doublet, nothing like the chaste pecks from their game. She has never kissed him in this way. For a moment Petyr is surprised enough to let her, stiff under her grip. (Lysa had been possessive of him, aggressive in her affections, his hateful late wife. She had taken from Petyr what she wanted and he had let her.)

He pulls back and pries her hands away.

“ _Sansa?_ ”

She is furious; the white of her eyes reddened and wild. But there must be something in Petyr, he doesn’t know what, that gives her pause. A small breath and with it leaves her ire. Blue eyes soften. She pulls her wrists from his grip, gentle, and reaches up to hold his face in her hands.

Petyr feels the pad of her thumb stroke against his cheek and- _shit_ , the way she looks at him _,_ he forgets everything, forgets every plan, every kingdom. There was never a Catelyn, never a Lysa.

His chest is whole and unmarred, he is a boy who does not know his station. He is Petyr.

And when Sansa leans in again Petyr meets her halfway.

_(What has love to do with marriage?)_

Her arms circle his neck, fingers thread through greying hair, nail scratch at his scalp. Petyr smooths his hands over her waist, presses his palms to the small of her back and pulls her closer, closer, closer. His cloak drops to the floor, pin clattering to the wood. Her lips find his neck, his jaw, his throat, his pulse.

Petyr closes his eyes and lets her pull him apart.

When her warmth leaves him, abruptly, he feels beggared, chest heaving and doublet open. Sansa looks at him with hard eyes.

“Give me reason to trust you.”

Then she is gone.

16.

If Lady Stark is angry with him, she hides it well enough.

Petyr leads her into the waiting arms of Wyman Manderly, (Lord Too-Fat-To-Sit-A-Horse Stannis had called him once, the one and only jape Petyr ever heard the man make), and Lord Too-Fat engulfs Sansa in a hug unbecoming of the Lady of the Winterfell. The girl does not seem to mind.

“Ho! Such beauty has not graced my halls since the conquest! You have your mother’s look, my lady.” The man holds Sansa at arm’s length, gracing her with a smile that bares more chins than teeth, before he steps back and bows so low his belly brushes against his shins. When he straightens his blue eyes are solemn. “I was sorry for her passing, my lady, and for the good King Robb. Fine folk, the both of them. My boy Wendel went with them to break bread and did not return.”

“I am sorry also, my lord.” Sansa is straight-backed, strong, “I mean to claim justice for that betrayal.”

“Justice?” Manderly booms, “I would make do with revenge, Lady Sansa. But as you wish. Your father ever had the loyalty of Wyman Manderly, and then your brother. You shall have it, too.”

They sup on mead and meat in the hall with all of Manderly’s typical fanfare, Petyr at Lord Too-Fat’s left and Sansa at his right. They’ve met before, he and Wyman, back when Petyr had been but a small boy clutching at the Blackfish’s cloaks, the excitable young ward of a river lord. Lord Manderly had been kind to him then and the years have not changed his manner.

“You were a bold little lad, Baelish.” Manderly chuckles to him now, “And clever, too. Tell me… why are you so far from home?”

“My lord?”

“The clever choice was to stay in the Vale. Why are you here?”

He will have to watch out for this one. It’s an effective disguise, cunning hidden behind affability. Petyr knows it well. He takes a sip of his wine as he mulls on his answer.

“You spoke earlier of revenge.”

The Lord’s eyes are shrewd. At his side Sansa has befriended a serious young girl, Manderly’s granddaughter. “My lady spoke of justice.”

“Sometimes they are the same, my lord.”

Petyr thinks of his mother, dead before her time. He thinks of Brandon Stark and the Mad King, Robert drunk on the throne, Cersei and her power. For Rhaegar’s love, tens of thousands died. For Petyr’s love, he bled alone in the dirt.

Family. Duty. Honour.

Perhaps one day the rest of them will understand his hatred for such words.

17.

He visits her that night.

His men are perfect guards: discreet, unquestioning. When Petyr comes calling at her door after midnight they are statues against the wall. Sansa’s eyes widen in surprise when she answers, wearing a hastily tied robe and the clear look of one who has not slept.

“Lord Baelish?”

Petyr inclines his head, as cordial as if he were called.

“Apologies for the hour, my lady. I wondered if I might have a word.”

She nods and waits, making no move to step aside. Petyr masks his impatience with a smirk.

“Perhaps _inside_ your chambers?”

Tully eyes narrow, but she moves aside. “Of course, my lord, though I would not call this appropriate.”

_I might have said the same about your last visit._

Wyman Manderly has not spared any expense with their chambers. If anything, Sansa’s chambers are even more luxurious than Petyr’s. The furnishings are lavish and encrusted in pearl, the bed draped in furs dyed the blue-green of House Manderly. She had been sewing before he interrupted, weathered socks lying half-darned on the table. A chest of clothes gifted to her by Lord Too-Fat sits unopened and untouched at the side. Petyr drinks it all in as Sansa closes the door, and he doesn’t turn until he hears the clunk of the bolt.

The robe she wears is thick but he can see the thin white of her nightgown peeking out from below the hemline.

“Well?”

Petyr draws his eyes back to her face. She watches him warily. There’s enough space between them he can’t reach her if he tried.

“On the ship…” He wets his lips, “What were you doing?”

She looks ill-at-ease. Petyr can see her pulling a mask together even as she stares at him, and he can’t help but chuckle.

“You know what I want?” He asks.

“Everything.” There is no hesitation.

“No… There’s more to it. You know that.” He drinks her in, from her bare toes to her red hair, fills his gaze with worship. “You were trying to manipulate me.”

“Did it work?”

 _Yes._ That Tully gaze will be the death of him. Petyr chuckles again. He takes a step towards her, and another when she doesn’t withdraw.

He looks at her mouth, leans in as if to share a secret.

“You’ll need to try harder.”

This time he leads.

Her robe drops to the floor. His belt. Her gown. His doublet. Sansa shivers in her shift and he pulls her flush against him, pushes his tongue into her mouth and revels in the return. His hands tug at her shift and she doesn't protest, only lifts her arms until she is bare to him, skin prickling in the cold air. Petyr leaves her lips only to remove his tunic, to feel the warmth of her breasts against his chest, and then he lifts her into his arms and carries her to the bed.

Their coupling is slow, gentle.

Sansa is a maiden, he knows, and it’s proved by the blood between her legs, the gasp of pain as he pushes into her.

 _“Look at me.”_ And she does, shares his breath as he takes his fill of her.

Her skin is slick against his, sweat sour on his tongue. Petyr savours every sound, every sigh, every moan stifled against him as pain gives way to pleasure. She keeps him close. Her arms wrap around his shoulders, heels dig into his thighs. He can feel her hand in his hair, feels her fingers tighten when he opens her lips, swallows her noises.

At their end she shakes beneath him, muffles a hiccupping cry against his neck.

Petyr sighs her name into her hair.

They lie still after, clutched together as he softens, bathed in sweat and heaving for breath. Her legs tangle with his, her nose buried into the crook of his neck, fingers drawing slow shapes onto his chest.

It’s a long while before he realises she is tracing his scar.

_(You were trying to manipulate me._

_Did it work?)_

Petyr stills then, pushes her away and rises, turns his back on her confusion as he pulls on his clothes.

“Petyr?”

He pauses at the door but does not look at her. _I am a fool._

“I’ll send some moon tea in the morning.”

18.

Catelyn hadn’t visited him after the duel. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

The last he had seen of her was as his blood dirtied her betrothed’s sword.

And then she was in King’s Landing, older, aloof, securing his help, extracting promises on the weight of his love for her and the life he had lost for her. She left him again with a kiss on the cheek and an aching chest.

19.

Sansa does not speak to him the next day.

Nor the day after.

She's angry and Petyr accepts it. But he does not allow her to excuse him from her life, does not react to her blank stare, her non-responses.

Shadows begin to form beneath her eyes and something like guilt stirs in his gut.

20.

Brienne of Tarth appears on the steps of the New Castle and demands to see the Lady Stark. The strange boy is with her, Podrick, the quiet one with the tongue his whores so loved.

Petyr stands at Sansa’s side, Manderly an ever present booming commentary.

“Why have you come?” She would not thank Petyr to speak on her behalf but he does so anyway. The air is colder between them than it has ever been.

“Lord Baelish. Lady Sansa. I am Brienne of Tarth-“

“We’ve met. With Renly Baratheon.” Petyr purses his lips, remembers her prickly nature, “What was it he said? Your loyalty came free of charge… Someone seems to have paid quite a bit for it, since then.”

The big woman bristles. From his periphery he sees a sliver of irritation flash across Sansa’s face before it settles back into cordiality, the first kernel of emotion she has shown him in days.

“I heard rumour of a vow, Lady Brienne.” Sansa speaks now, before he can continue. A shame. He enjoys toying with this one. There are so many japes on the tip of his tongue, so many shades of red the wench can turn. “One that you made to my mother.”

Brienne looks at Sansa as if she is the Maiden herself and Petyr smirks, remembers the sight of her maidenhead on his cock.

“I promised your mother I would keep you and your sister safe.”

“You were at Joffrey’s wedding. I remember you now.” _Good girl_.

The big woman’s face is riddled with grief. “I meant to take you from that place. You had gone before I could… I have travelled the realm since in search of you.”

It’s no lie. Petyr doubts the wench even knows how to lie; she looks an honourable creature, albeit without the knighthood. Brienne of Tarth lowers herself to a knee and raises her sword.

“Lady Sansa, I offer you my services.” She intones, stiff as rust but not without feeling. Her gaze shines as she looks upon her, “I will shield your back, and keep your counsel, and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

There's a pause. For a moment the flicker of Sansa’s eyes turn to Petyr, before she stops and looks instead to Manderly. Petyr squashes his irritation.

“This one looks strong, my lady!” Wyman booms, “I daresay I would want her to watch my back if you won’t have her.”

Sansa inhales and Petyr knows her answer. Perhaps it will not be a bad thing, he can't protect her like Brienne of Tarth can, but the wench’s presence will surely widen this new distance between them.

“And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table, and a pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonour. I swear it by the old gods and the new.” Sansa smiles and beckons, “Arise.”

The list of people for Petyr to watch grows ever longer.

21.

A tourney in honour of the newly returned Lady Stark offers Petyr a chance to speak to her.

It’s his idea, of course, filtered through several Lords to reach Manderly’s ears. A large expense during wartime, but needs must and their need is for squires to become knights and swell the ranks. Lord Too-Fat, luckily, is both clever and generous and of a House rich enough to accommodate.

It's also Petyr’s idea for Brienne of Tarth to enter the lists.

“My lady should at least see how her sworn sword fights.” Is his reasoning, spoken in front of the right audience so Sansa must agree.

He does not miss the glare she sends his way.

As expected, Sansa gives Lady Brienne her favour. And as expected, Lady Brienne favours the melee.

Petyr waits until Sansa is seated before he sends the page over, a little boy bribed to make up some pretence or other. A high sun graces the tourney and he watches the sunlight flash against the clasp in her hair as she nears his hiding place, beneath the stands.

“ _Wha_ -“ Quick as a flash Petyr pulls her to him, presses his hand against her mouth and raises a single finger to his lips.

It’s amusing how fast the fear turns to ire in her eyes.

He takes her by the hand and pulls her deeper and deeper into the shadows, below the stamping feet and cheering lords. What light reaches them now flickers across her face as golden bars.

“What do you want?” Sansa hisses, and Petyr doesn't think he has ever seen her so angry.

“You.” He says, simply, “Only you.”

The anger eases but a little. She takes a step back, lip curling.

“I am not some whore for you to use when you wish.”

Petyr only shakes his head, pulls her close again. Gods, he feels unwell around her, drunk. _It’s a worthwhile risk_ , he lies, _Lothor will keep our privacy._ The knight hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at Petyr’s request.

He presses a kiss to Sansa’s knuckles.

“Please,” His thumb brushes over unblemished skin, “forgive me my lady. I had not meant to offend you.”

She looks at him strangely. “Why did you leave?”

Was there a worthwhile lie? The thought of one leaving his mouth seems wrong. Had that ever stopped him before?

“I was reminded of something I’d rather forget. I ran from the memory, not from you, sweetling.”

A cheer rises above them, the thudding of feet vibrates the ground below. Some knight has been bested, probably, but it will not have been Brienne. Sansa searches for something in his face. Her hand is still in his.

Petyr closes the distance between them and waits, silent, head tilted and lips a hair’s breadth from hers. A heartbeat. He waits. Another. In the distance, a herald announces the next round. He waits.

She does not kiss him.

Instead she tugs at the lacing of his breeches and pulls him free, wriggles out of her small clothes, wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

There is no ceremony, no caress, no warmth. Her Tully eyes hold his all the while, even as he pushes her against the stone wall and slides between her legs, as he moves deep enough to slap skin against skin. Only when his fingers move between them, when she begins to come undone, do her eyes flutter shut, lips parted. Petyr inhales the scent at her throat. They are quiet, the sound of quickening breath drowned by the hubbub above.

She almost falls when she comes to her end, bucking and clenching in his arms. He follows her over soon after, lips pressed against her pulse as the stands cheer and holler.

22.

The big wench is keeping a closer eye on him than he likes.

Perhaps he should not make japes at her expense, but, truly, he considers his joking rather tame with regards to her. This mare is a touchy one. And it’s clear she decided not to trust him even before they met a second time; a lingering feeling, likely, from her time with Renly.

“My lady, will you not drink?” Petyr asks when she stands by Sansa at meetings.

“My lady, you need only ask to be knighted.” At the crowning of her melee victory.

Eventually Sansa takes him by the arm and mutters to leave her alone. He acquiesces with a gracious smile and proceeds to ignore the wench altogether.

Brienne will cleave him in two if he hurts Sansa. Luckily for all of them, hurting Sansa is the last thing Petyr desires.

He doesn’t visit her again for the remainder of their time in White Harbour.

23.

Word comes from the Mormonts, Umbers, and Karstarks. At last, they ride for the Barrowlands.

With an army this large Winterfell will be short work. He says as much to Sansa and is amused when she tells him he is not a military man.

“No, but I _am_ a numbers man. The odds are in our favour.”

 _Our_ favour. He knows she notes this word carefully. He had taught her well.

Their train of men is miles long as they ride the Goldgrass but Petyr is sure to ride beside her, Brienne and Podrick Payne behind.

“You must have crossed the Goldgrass on your way South, my lady?”

Their tryst under the tourney stands has robbed her of her anger, even as it stokes Petyr’s desire. Gods, he is a boy again, deprived of her.

“Tell me about your home, Sansa.” He asks. The question is genuine, and it must show on his face when she looks at him.

“Have you never been to the North, my lord?” Her mouths quirks into a small sad smile.

“I haven’t had the pleasure.” A half-lie; he doubts there is pleasure to be had if the people are anything to go by, but he is aiming for a happier smile. “My Southern skin might punish me for it.”

She gives a small laugh at that and Petyr is triumphant.

“I hear the glass gardens are ever warm, my lady.” Brienne calls from behind.

“They are.” Sansa turns in her saddle to smile at the other woman, then hums to herself in thought for a moment before continuing. “The whole castle is warm, actually. Winterfell’s built over hot springs and the water’s piped through the walls…”

A familiar ache builds in Petyr’s chest as she talks. He doesn’t realise the smile on his face until he catches the big wench watching him, and even then he cannot bring himself to care.

24.

They’ve been encamped for days in Barrowland fields when word reaches them of victory at Barrowton.

A short battle, the raven scroll tells, another stronghold for the Stark banner.

The northerners rally now, more and more men join by the day, silver fists and bears amongst the birds of Arryn, and in the distance the white sunbursts of Karhold, newly arrived, far outnumbering every report of Bolton’s force. Petyr does not blend well with these northmen, with their stiff tongues and boiled leather, but it is no matter. He is nothing if not adaptable. Already he has made himself invaluable to Lady Stark’s council with the knowledge afforded to him by a decade in King’s Landing.

He means to show them he is not a Lannister man.

_(Which king do you serve?)_

The people love her.

Sansa has wit and cunning and, while Petyr has played no small part in her education, there is a strength in her that comes only from being a Stark.

 _(Quick tempers. Slow minds.)_ Not so with this one.

“May I see you tonight?” He asks after they break their fast.

They move on in two days and already the camp is emptying as the men ready for war. Nobody pays them attention as they talk in hushed tones, Brienne the Beauty in tow.

Sansa glances at him with no small amount of reproach.

Petyr smiles contritely. “I have something to show you. A letter of great import.”

She mulls it over. “I suppose you’ll want me to send Brienne away.”

“Not for long, my lady.”

“No, it won’t last very long, will it?”

 _Oh, she is a cheeky one._ It delights Petyr. He can see the twist of her lips as she smothers her own smile.

True to her word the big wench is nowhere to be seen when Petyr slips into her tent, long after dinner, leaving Lothor once more to guard from the shadows. Sansa sits reading a weighty tome by candlelight, a book he recognises as one of his.

“Interesting reading?”

She does not look up at his words. “Not in the slightest.”

Petyr waits. After a moment she sighs and marks her place, rests the book on crossed legs and looks at him.

“What warrants such a private visit? The council meeting would have done.”

He smirks and reaches into his cloak, produces with a flourish a letter sealed with a brown sparrow. Sansa is not amused with his theatrics. A bottle of wine sits on her table and he uncorks it as she reads, pours them a cup to share and offers it to her. She takes an absent minded sip.

“From the High Septon in King’s Landing. An annulment of your marriage to Tyrion Lannister.”

Sansa looks up from the parchment, then back down at the words, brow furrowed.

“How? Cersei would not have allowed this.”

“Cersei and the High Septon are… not in agreement, at the moment.” An understatement, if his sources are correct. “Everyone knows your marriage was as good as at sword point. And unconsummated.”

Petyr watches the hint of a blush creep across her throat. He remembers the feel of his lips on her pulse. _Control_.

“You were quick to secure this.”

“It seemed as apt a time as any.”

“Our betrothal had nothing to do with it, then?” Sansa’s eyes are shrewd.

Petyr only takes the goblet from her hand. She turns from him and kneels to bury the letter in her trunk.

“We marry in Winterfell. That was our deal.”

“I know.”

“Then why bring this to me now?” Sansa steps closer, crossing her arms over her chest. She looks like Alayne Stone in the candle light. He takes a sip of the wine.

“I wanted to see you.” _The truth._

Petyr can see from the way she holds herself, the slow exhale and the flicker of her eyes, that she doesn't believe it. She studies him for a moment.

“Which one are you? Right now?” Her voice is barely more than a whisper, “Petyr or Littlefinger?”

Gods, she thinks so little of him. He doesn’t know how to reply. A beat. Another. Petyr closes his mouth lest the flies take him, swallow him up from the inside out.

“Sansa…” He takes a step forward and she flinches away.

“I am sorry to have misled you, my lord, but I will not marry you.” Her eyes are cold, unwavering blue, “I will only marry for love.”

Petyr stills. The rest is unspoken.

 _(What has love to do with marriage?)_ It is a humorous thing to him, to be rejected then for duty and now for love. The words tighten within his chest. _Of course she does not love you_. _Fool._ The mask is falling from his face and he takes a steadying breath, closes his eyes and wills some control into his mind.

 _It is no matter._ This betrothal was one of finance, logistics. He only has to call away the Vale’s army if he wants her, let the bodies of her northmen fertilise her lands.

When he opens his eyes Sansa is reaching for him.

Petyr steps back. Her hand falls.

“As you say, my lady.” Littlefinger’s voice is steady. “I’ll not keep you from your bed. We can discuss this on the morrow.”

 _Fool._ In one swift gulp he downs the rest of the wine, sketches a short bow, and turns, setting down the cup as he leaves.

He doesn’t get far.

Petyr stops. There is a tingling in his throat, a numbness in his fingers. When he presses his thumb and index together the feeling is dulled. A soft thud behind him and he turns to find Sansa crumpled on the ground.

 _The wine_.

Her name leaves his lips before the ground takes him, too.

25.

He wakes with his head in Sansa’s lap.

There’s an ache at his temple, a gentle throb that pounds in time with the jostle of wheels against mud. A carriage. Just the two of them. Whoever has taken them must be riding horseback. The door is locked if the bars on the windows are anything to go by.

What else?

His hands are bound. Hers too; he can feel the tickle of rope against his neck, a steady pressure against his head that must be her fingers. Petyr feigns unconsciousness a little while, breathing in the scent of her cloak, before he shifts to look at her. Blue eyes flicker downwards.

“You’re awake.” There is relief in her voice.

“Unfortunately.” His voice is a rasp and he clears his throat, leverages himself up to sit beside her. The throbbing in his head flares for a moment before abating.

“You slept a lot longer than I.”

She is remarkably calm given their circumstance, and he tells her so. Sansa only looks out of the window.

Petyr checks his head- _no blood-_ and then his clothes, the inner pocket of his robes, his boots. His knives are gone but Cersei Lannister’s letter is tucked safely away. The dolts did not search them well.

“I caught a look at our friends. Unmarked but I know one of their faces: Cregan Karstark.” Sansa tells him, and laughs once, “Funny. I’d thought _you_ had drugged me until I woke up with you here.”

“You have little faith in me, sweetling.” He tries not to find offense in her words, that she thought him capable of harming her. “Lothor was waiting for me. Let us hope he saw. They must be taking us to Winterfell.”

Sansa does not respond. Already Petyr’s mind is searching for possible routes forward, finding a way to spin this in their favour.

“I would never hurt you, Sansa.” He murmurs, finally.

Silence reigns a few moments. She looks amused.

“I once thought you were the smartest man alive.”

26.

They plot in hushed tones as the days go by.

The carriage never stops, not even to let the horses rest, and so they trundle on from dawn until dusk until dawn, clattering their way north. It’s almost easy to forget they're captives, so accustomed they are to travelling together.

“I’ve never killed someone before.” She tells him.

“It’s not all that hard.”

“Pushing my aunt through the moon door wasn’t hard, I’m sure. This will be different.”

Petyr only laughs. “Is it the killing that worries you, or the act before?”

At this Sansa reaches over and grabs him through his breeches, startles him enough that he bangs his head against the carriage. He groans at her squeeze.

“Don’t patronise me.” Her gaze is furious.

Petyr draws his cloak over his lap for the rest of the day.

27.

“What did he promise you? Karhold proper? Seems a poor prize for a turncloak, if I might say so, and I know many a thing about prizes.”

Most Northmen are loyal to a fault, Petyr has found.

As for the others, well, coin is their one true god.

By now- he hopes- Lothor will have exposed the Karstarks as traitors and imprisoned their men. Or perhaps bought their loyalty. It’s a simple matter to convince these men to deliver them as equals, as willing participants without rope or manacle.

“Tell Lord Bolton we will deliver to him the North.”

28.

Winterfell is just as Petyr imagined.

True enough, it’s seen its fair share of the war and more so. Perhaps it was once a place of laughter, with children and food and merriment as Sansa had said, but the Winterfell in which they arrive is cold and broken.

He had never been able to imagine Catelyn leaving Riverrun for a life here. It seems too dark a place to raise someone as bright as Sansa.

She was born here, he thinks, in stone and snow.

Roose Bolton greets them with all the cheer of a rotting leech and it’s a test of Sansa’s strength, from the start, to be welcomed home by her family’s murderer. He pushes down the memory of his own dagger at Ned’s neck.

“I was expecting a wolf,” Bolton says, “And they’ve brought me a bird as well.”

“A mockingbird, my lord, with songs to sing.” Littlefinger smiles.

29.

Meat and mead will give him no guest rights here, Petyr knows, and he is not eager to succumb to poison so soon after the long ride here. Roose Bolton is a clever man. The man takes a sip of his own wine and a bite of his own food and then swaps his cup and plate with Petyr.

“You don’t trust me, Lord Baelish.” He is amused.

“Would you?” Petyr takes a sip of the wine and finds it tart. He swallows all the same.

Best he does not mention who had a hand in Joffrey’s death.

Bolton studies him over the table.

“I was surprised to hear the Vale had declared for House Stark.” He raises an eyebrow, “The Lannisters made you one of the great lords of Westeros. You only had to sit in The Eyrie and rule through a boy.”

“A stubborn boy.”

“Spare me the lies, my Lord. Your presence in the North undermines the Lannisters. Why gamble with your position?”

Petyr shrugs.

“Every move is a gamble. Joffrey is dead, and Renly Baratheon and Robb Stark. I’d quite forgotten Balon Greyjoy existed as, I’m sure, had the rest of the realm. Stannis marches on Winterfell with barely an army to his name. The War of the Five Kings is ending and the Queen Mother would like that ending…” He gestures vaguely with his knife, “ _accelerated._ ”

“You mean to say she sent you here?”

“In a fashion.” Petyr retrieves Cersei’s letter from his robes and hands it across the table. Bolton’s eyes glitter.

“And here I thought I had sent for a captive.”

“You think Sansa Stark would come here unwillingly?”

“I killed her brother.” _And her mother_ , Petyr does not say.

“I have convinced her this is in her best interests.”

“And she listens to you?”

“The Lady Stark is quite… enamoured with me.” Petyr raises his eyebrows suggestively, “Hard to believe, perhaps, but we have spent these last few years in close quarters. Would a girl not love her saviour?”

Roose’s lips curl into some semblance of a smile. “How do you know?”

“We are betrothed, my Lord. I took her maidenhead just last month. Would that I had brought you the sheets.”

“As I recall, the rumours are you took her mother’s and aunt’s, too.”

 _Would that I had. It was only Lysa, all along. Perhaps I would be an honourable man if I’d known then._ Petyr pushes those thoughts away and smiles.

“Tully women.” He shrugs again, “We all have our preferences. I assure you my preferences are willing parties.”

It is not wise to jape at his host’s expense but gods is it amusing.

“What do you suggest?”

“Marry Lady Sansa to your bastard. I understand he was legitimised by King Tommen?” Roose nods, “Then what better way to secure the allegiance of the North? With me you have an ally in the Vale, and I can personally deliver your _affirmed_ allegiance to Cersei.”

“You’ll not leave Winterfell until the Northern army is under my control, Lord Baelish. Do you take me for a fool?”

Petyr only raises his goblet, mischievous. “Not at all, my lord. I take you for a victor.”

When supper is finished, and before he is led away to his chambers for the night, Petyr stops as if remembering a quick detail.

“How far does Stannis camp, my Lord?”

“A day’s ride from here. Why do you ask?”

“It’s a long ways from the wall, I worry how low his supplies are running. You know how fickle a hungry army can be. Perhaps you could spare twenty men to aid them.”

30.

Not three days later, the first battle of Winterfell is done.

Petyr watches from the battlements as they tie Stannis’ men to wooden posts, flayed corpses drying in the frigid sun. Beside him, Sansa is as cold as the snow itself, unreachable.

It has been too long since he has seen her smile.

That night the wine he shares with Roose Bolton is sweeter than the last.

31.

Another week passes.

They learn much of the Boltons, observations shared in moments snatched in alcoves and courtyards. He hasn’t touched her in so long; a tight leash is kept on the both of them and Petyr is loath to loosen them, to arouse suspicion.

Bolton’s forces include the Ryswells and Dustin, this they knew, but now also the Karstarks and rumours of the Umbers. None hold any love for their new liege lords. Theirs is an alliance purely for gain, whether land, power, or money.

“Do they not know they’re outnumbered?” She asks. They must, so capturing Sansa was their last resort.

She is their only hope of keeping the North.

Their place here is a perilous thing.

32.

He finds her in the glass gardens one evening, staring at the rotting flowers.

“I’m scared of him.”

“You should be. Lord Bolton is a dangerous man.”

She only shakes her head. When she looks at him her eyes are moist. Petyr is transfixed.

“Not him. His son.”

Their plans need time, but he can’t allow it when she looks at him like this. ( _I would never hurt you, Sansa.)_ Best they accelerate matters.

“Are you certain of Theon Greyjoy?”

33.

They gamble on the loyalty of an invalid.

“The pack survives.” He hears her whisper to Theon-Reek, both a prayer and a promise.

34.

Sansa Stark’s second wedding is a sombre affair.

He hadn’t been there for her marriage to Tyrion, busy as he was with a harpy shrieking beneath him in bed, but he imagines it involved false cheer and satin dresses, lemon cakes and arbour wine. None of this is so in Winterfell. There are only solemn faces and an abundance of cabbage and ale.

The irony is not lost on Petyr as he gives her away at the Heart Tree. He loves her, he thinks, though it’s been so long since Cat that he isn’t sure he recognises the feeling.

(He does. It’s the ache in his chest, the halt of his breath, the closing of his throat. It hasn’t changed in all these years).

The bedding is muted. Petyr takes her there himself, alone, her hand in his arm and all others brushed off with a fierce look. Her skin is cold as he brushes a kiss across her cheek, slips the metal into her sleeve.

“Be strong without me.” A breath into her ear before he leaves her to her fate.

The rest of the castle is deep in revelry. There is work to do.

35.

His chambers are first. Petyr retrieves his money, his dagger, and flint.

The rookery next. Three ravens fly: one to the Vale, one to Barrowton, the last to the Wall.

The crypts are locked and guarded, but it’s a simple matter for coin to exchange hands. One guard is weak-hearted and prone to gamble. Petyr buys from him the key and feigns interest in dead Starks, leaving a sparsely packed sack in the dark.

Last, the food stores. Petyr plies the guards with poisoned rum and waits for the life to leave them, then he slips inside and strikes three separate fires.

The celebrations are dying by the time the alarm is raised. In the chaos it will be all too easy, even expected, for him to find a place at the Lord’s side. The dagger won’t make a sound...

Except Roose Bolton is nowhere to be found.

Something is wrong.

Petyr hurries back to Ramsay Bolton’s chambers and finds the door unlocked.

Inside, Sansa is naked as a newborn babe and bathed in blood.

36.

“You lied,” She sobs to him, “It’s _hard_.”

The body of Roose Bolton is cooling at her side, looking every bit a butchered pig. Petyr can see the white of the man’s spine through his throat. This was not the plan. _Where is Ramsay? Theon?_

A breath. Another. Calm. Control.

At least Roose is fully clothed.

Petyr strides to Sansa’s side and takes her face in his hands, holds her even as she flinches away. “Sansa. We must go. You must come with me.”

He takes his cloak and runs it across her skin, wipes the blood from her face, her shoulders, her breasts, her back. Already there are marks blossoming on her skin, gifts from Roose. She sits numbly as he cleans her. Finally Petyr pulls clothes at random from the bastard’s closet and dresses her, quick, tugs the tunic over her head, holds her against him to pull the breeches up over her hips, laces them with nimble fingers. The cloak Petyr wraps around her as he hurries her from the room, pocketing the metal shard as he goes.

They keep to a route Sansa detailed the week before, footsteps muted by the snow, but already there are shouts behind them; cries of anger and oaths of justice.

“We shouldn’t have trusted Theon.” Sansa murmurs into his cloak. “He knows about the tunnels.”

 _Fuck_. The boy was a miscalculation.

Petyr thinks wildly, pulls her up a set of stairs to the top of the battlements. How high is the snow on the outside? They fly across the stone, closer and closer to the outer walls.

“Lord Baelish!”

The way is blocked. He almost slips at the sight of the men ahead, comes close to tripping Sansa in his haste to turn. But the way is blocked.

Ramsay Bolton’s lips glisten like worms. At his side, Theon weeps.

37.

Ramsay looks at his father’s body like a broken toy and Petyr’s lies are useless before they even leave his mouth.

They break his nose. And then his ribs. Petyr feels them crack beneath Bolton boots and the next breath he takes sends fire through his chest.

Breathe. Breathe.

Sansa is screaming nearby.

At the sound of steel he forces himself up to his knees, braces one hand against the floor and clutches at his side with the other.

“You’re outnumbered,” He tells the Bastard through a mouth full of blood, “Kill me and the Vale will never allow you your place in the North.”

It’s not a lie. Thank fuck for Robyn’s fondness for him; it marries well with his impulsiveness. Ramsay slides his blade along the bob of Petyr’s throat.

“My father was exercising the lord’s right. Was it you who killed him?”

“I’d hoped he was you, in truth.”

Another blow to the head brings him back to the floor. Sansa’s yell is unintelligible.

Ramsay grinds his boot down onto the side of Petyr’s face, hard enough the leather flexes with with a squeal.

“Throw them in a cell.”

38.

The dungeons are not as well warmed as the rest of Winterfell.

Ramsay knows this, of course he does, the sly cunt, and he orders Petyr stripped to his undertunic and breeches, everything taken from his pin to the metal shard. The same is done to Sansa, a strange sight in Ramsay’s ill-fitting clothes.

They throw their boots into the mud and drag them down to a damp cell, barefoot and staggering, throw them down to the cold stone. Petyr can’t help the grunt of pain when he lands sprawled on his chest.

The bastard stares at them from the other side of the bars.

“So many plans I had for you both… Baelish would be my new Reek, Lady Sansa my beloved wife. Why did you have to burn the food?” His pale eyes are red with anger, “Be glad I learnt a thing or two from my dear father.”

It's days before they are brought food and water.

39.

Petyr is not an idle man.

In Kings Landing he slept little, relaxed less. Whatever time he had was used with effect, whether small council business, calculations of coin, transactions and bargaining, procuring whores, currying favour with nobles, bedding Lysa, whispering into her ear…

Imprisonment is a torture in itself.

There is no comfortable position to sit or lie, not with bones crunching beneath his skin and the pain at every short, rasping breath, every cough he stifles. Sansa watches him shift and turn on the stone, silent until he grunts with frustration.

“Come here.” She pats the stone beside her. Her hands are darkened with dirt and Roose’s blood.

Petyr shuffles over and sits, his back against the wall and legs outstretched with hers, hand cradling his ribs. She is trembling. He can feel her against him, more so when she rests her head on his shoulder and clutches at his arm. A slow exhale, then another. Slowly she begins to settle. He takes her hand in his and rubs the blood from her skin.

“Not all gambles pay off, my sweet girl.” He breathes against her hair, and then, “I’m sorry.”

40.

They pass the time with failures.

Sansa is restless enough for the both of them, a lone wolf and a wounded bird in a stone cage. She pulls at the bars first, searches for rust along the iron, any sign of wear at their clasps. The walls are next, her pale, dirty hands rubbing along every seam, fingers poking into gaps between the rock.

“You didn’t spend any time here as a child?” Petyr asks and is rewarded with narrowed eyes.

“I was busy sewing and reading stories. This was Arya’s playground.”

There is sadness in her voice disguised as frustration. He’s heard the same in his own voice, too often, Petyr Baelish leaking through the cracks of Littlefinger.

She takes to pacing, then, when her search proves fruitless. Back and forth, bare feet padding against the ground in soft, gentle slaps until he can map her exact steps in the soot. Petyr watches her from against the wall. He hasn’t moved much since the first day, has not slept for the pain in his side.

“Why are you so quiet?” Sansa huffs when he cocks his head, languid, “All you do is sit there! At least speak to me.”

Distantly, Petyr wonders if she thinks him prone to chatter.

“What should we speak of?”

Her face reddens, hands curl into fists at her side. Petyr watches her knuckles whiten. They will come for her soon, he knows, Ramsay and his wandering cock.

With a grimace, he pushes to his feet and closes the distance between them. “Shall we talk about the things he will do to you?”

“What? No-“

Petyr laughs.

“You think he will leave you here, unspoiled?”

“Stop it-“

“I’ve already cleared the way for him-“

Her palm meets the meat of his cheek and the blow is hard enough to sting. A moment passes. The slap echoing against the cell walls. Petyr works his jaw before he looks at her, Tully eyes shining with fear.

( _Now that you’re a woman, he’ll be able to enjoy you in other ways._ Words to a grieving child, to scare her, to drive her into his arms.)

Petyr rests his forehead against hers.

“We must tread carefully, Sansa.” He whispers against her lips, “I promised you once that I would protect you. You must believe me when I say that I will. Remember my lessons. Do that for me.”

41.

They come for her the next day, just as Petyr thought.

He rises to his feet the moment the Bastard enters, draws his mask over his face and smirks.

“Back so soon, my lord? Are the wolves at your door?”

“Behind them, actually.” Was there ever a more vomit-inducing smile?

When the guards enter the cell, Petyr steps in front of Sansa. “There is no way out of this alive for you, Lord Bolton.” He tells the bastard, “Allow me to help you.”

“You don’t think I’ll win the battle?” _Cocky shit_.

“Against the Vale, the North, and Nights Watch?”

Ramsay’s smile falls. His ugly brow furrows. “The Nights Watch will not leave the wall.”

“Ned Stark’s bastard is the Lord Commander and he knows you have his sister. You don’t think he will come for her? Family ties are strong with the Starks.”

 _Family. Duty. Honour._ Tully words.

The Bastard’s eyes dart to Sansa, and Petyr hopes to the gods she is wearing the appropriate look. Defiance, perhaps? Certainty would do.

They leave her be and take Petyr to what was once Eddard Stark’s solar, though it has seen several owners since then. Ramsay is a man eager to make his mark. Already Roose Bolton’s head sits atop the fireplace, preserved in salted water.

“Go on then.”

Petyr tears his eyes from the severed head and begins to spin the bastard a tale of treachery, one that values Sansa’s health and his own life, emphasises the bastard’s importance, the ease with which these plans can be made.

But the Bastard watches with those pale, dead eyes and as the smile grows on Ramsay’s face, Petyr recalls a lesson he'd once taught Sansa, of humble pieces and wills. _Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you’ve planned for them_ , he had said.

If only they'd killed the right Bolton.

42.

Ramsay Bolton is a man well-acquainted with torture.

Petyr realises this when they salt the fleshy space where his little finger had been.

Theon must be in the room. Petyr can smell him. He focuses on the familiar reek instead of the metallic scent of blood, the hollow thuds of bones breaking, skin splitting. He is not a man used to pain, though he has felt it as keenly as any soldier, and every hit brings a grunt, every crack a cry. If his ribs weren’t broken before, they are now; Petyr moans against the floor after they give way.

When they take him back to the cell it’s with a promise of _more_.

They deposit him on the floor, limp and bleeding, and as Petyr feels Sansa’s tears against his cheeks he wonders if Ned would have done the same for Cat.

43.

He bandages his own wounds with whatever spare cloth they have, then he sits beside her at the wall and tells her all he has seen.

Ramsay is sending his finger to Cersei, he’s sure of it.

“I can’t think like him.” Sansa confesses, as they speculate, “He’s not a player, but he’s not a piece either. He’s a monster.”

Petyr thinks of Ramsay’s fingers tightening in his hair, of the straining bulge of his delight, and he can’t help but agree. _What has a monster on man?_ He gives her his best guess at Cersei’s response and in return Sansa gives her his. Neither is useful.

“She won’t help them _or_ us. All she cares about is being Queen and fucking her brother.”

Petyr laughs so hard he almost faints from the pain.

44.

They take him again.

“You should think more like your father.” Petyr warns, and gets the lash for his troubles. “He would never meet them in the open field.”

Back in the cell he lets her care for him, lying prone as she dabs at the ruins of his back. He insists she repeats his observations back to him and muffles his gasps against his fist as she works.

Pain breeds pain, broken ribs and bloody lips, exhaustion, starvation, thirst. He fancies himself hallucinating when they are finally brought water and bread, and Sansa presses the food through his lips like a mother would her babe. It tastes like metal against his tongue.

That night he falls asleep burning against her chest.

45.

Fever loosens his tongue.

She asks him of his childhood and he indulges her, weaves stories of sheepshit and rocks, his mother and her love, his father and his sword.

“You would have liked my mother.” He tells her, “She was kind. And good. Perhaps I would be too if she had lived.”

When his breath begins to rattle in his chest, he tells her of the waves crashing against the Fingers, of his hand in his father’s. When the pain in his side rises, he tells her of Edmure and the Blackfish, of blunted swords and muddy scuffles. Each cough tears through him like Brandon’s sword and he moves on. She brings the stale bread to his mouth and he tells her of mud pies and girlish giggles, old Maester Kym’s warm hands and soft words. Every retch brings his aching body but a little closer to those memories. He thought he had forsaken them long ago.

“The food must be poisoned”, he croaks, as he heaves.

“It’s the cold” _,_ as his limbs shake.

“What a pitiful sight I must make, my love.”

And he must, trembling in his rags, stained with grime and half-mangled, pathetic and weak. Sansa pulls him into her arms and holds him, pours the water past his lips, anchors him there with cool hands on his face, his neck, his chest. _Breathe, Petyr. Breathe with me._ He presses his ear against the space above her heart and clings to the beat of it like a drowning man to rope.

“How long have we been here?” He asks her.

She doesn’t answer.

46.

This time it’s the woman who takes him.

“And you are?” Petyr pulls indifference around him like a cloak.

“Myranda, my lord.” Her voice is childlike.

She has him taken to a bedchamber and tied to the headboard by his wrists. In the corner of the room, Theon cowers. Petyr is confused by the change in routine. How is he to barter release with a kennel girl?

Reality does not dawn on him until her fingers begin to pull at his breeches, and like a fish plucked from water Petyr flounders and bucks, kicks out and curses. _No, no, no._

“ _What are you doing_?”

The girl’s hands come down hard against his ribs and all the breath leaves him. Another blow and Petyr sees blackness, a haze of panic and pain that pulls him under. When he surfaces she is on top of him and moaning and he is inside of her, and maybe if he closes his eyes he can wrestle back some control, bring this to a quick and unsatisfying resolution.

But another memory awaits him behind closed eyes and he is unsure which is worse.

(Lysa had taken him like this, feigned sisterly love to her father and she came and she climbed atop him and she writhed so fervently his wound had cracked and wept).

He is floating outside of his body by the time she finishes and leaves the room.

Theon moves forward to release him and Petyr’s hands fall limp against the bed. He hasn’t the strength even to cover himself.

“She thinks of you as a brother, you know.” He tells the boy, “I wonder how long Ramsay occupies himself with me. An hour? Pray tell, what is the fastest way out of Winterfell? You know it better than I.”

47.

Sansa is stood waiting when they return him to the cell, carried between two men like a rag doll strung on a cross.

She pulls Petyr from their grip before they can drop him, lowers him and all of his dead weight carefully to the floor. _She is strong_ , he thinks, reaching up to twine her hair in his fingers. A blink and suddenly she is her aunt, squealing on top of him. He turns away and retches bile on to the hard floor.

“I’m fine.” He flinches when she reaches for him, and Sansa retreats with hurt and worry in her eyes.

Petyr flops onto his back and breathes his short, rattling breaths. A sound to his left, and he knows she is watching him. He says nothing.

48.

Hours pass before he speaks.

“Did your mother never speak of me?” He asks in his raw, broken voice.

The reply is soft. “She did not.”

“I was her plaything when we were young. Did you ever kiss your brothers?” He doesn’t wait for her answer, “It was easy to fall in love with her. I was a slip of a boy from a slip of a land. She made me feel like I meant something. Family, duty, honour. The Tully words. I hate them now but not so then. Do you know of the duel?”

A pause. “I heard stories from the court.”

Petyr laughs, a half-strangled gargle, and realises how like a madman he sounds.

“You know why I challenged your uncle? I thought your mother loved me. I thought she had given me her maidenhead and the only _logical_ thing to do was defend her honour. Gods know it was what her father taught me to do. Except it hadn’t been Cat in my bed, it was Lysa.”

“She told me.” Sansa’s voice is trembling. Is he scaring her?

“I suppose she told you I enjoyed it? It wasn’t the last time. After Brandon cleaved me in two, she took me again and again and again. I was bed bound, delirious. Milk of the poppy fogs one’s mind, you know? And after she took me she let her womb quicken and told her father. He sent me back to my shithole of a birthplace, he was so furious. And I was so weak they had to carry me home. I’m not asking for your pity, Sansa. I want you to understand. I was a child still. I thought your mother loved me and your father ripped her away. But in truth your aunt took me and family, duty, honour took the rest.”

He is weakening. He can feel the blackness growing at the edge of his mind, but he can’t allow it, not when he has so much to say.

“Sansa.” Petyr says, and tears spill from his eyes into his hair. He reaches for her and she takes his hand, holds it tightly in both of hers as she lies down beside him, “Be strong without me.”

He feels her lips against his hand and smiles. She will hate him when he is done.

Petyr takes a breath and begins from the Tears of Lys.

49.

When he returns from Ramsay’s next attentions, Sansa is gone.

Theon, too. Myranda is dead. The Bastard rages.

There are no more attentions for days after and Petyr is left to die in his cell, bleeding and delirious.

When the exhaustion takes him he dreams of _her_ , of her arms wrapped around him, his nose in her hair, a metal crown atop her red hair. He chases sleep like an addict just to see her face.

_Is she safe?_

Petyr almost wishes they had stayed in Kings Landing.

Much in the same way he almost wishes he had never gone to a place called Riverrun.

50.

“My Lord Bolton. How may I be of service?”

The Bastard’s smile could scare children. “You do have a pretty tongue. Perhaps I should cut it out.”

Petyr only stares. The Bastard is disappointed.

“Your lady is at my door with her army.”

Petyr raises an eyebrow, lethargic, even as his heart soars. “If you’re looking for a cunning scheme, I’m afraid the hour is a little late.”

The Bastard draws his knife and moves forward, crouches close enough Petyr can smell his breath.

 _This is how I am to die_ , Petyr thinks, _at least I am not on a chamber pot._

But instead Ramsay turns and motions. Out from the shadows comes a boy, manhandled and angry, looking half a wilding and half a lordling. Red hair. Blue eyes. If Rickon Stark were alive, this is what he would look like, Petyr thinks.

 _Oh_.

“A shame… I wanted to make you run. This one will have to do.” _Gods_ , the bastard’s breath is rancid, “No pretty words to stop me?”

Petyr doesn’t know what to say. His mind struggles and fails like the spluttering of a lamp.

The blade bites into the flesh of his jaw.

“You weak southron Lords.” The Bastard sits back and looks down at Petyr’s hands, “Which ring will she recognise, do you think?”

He takes them all, rattles them in his fist like lucky chicken bones, pale eyes agleam as he stands and saunters away. The boy is pulled after them, cursing all the while.

“I’ll bring you her pretty head and you can thank me with that pretty tongue.”

51.

Petyr drifts.

Blue eyes. Red hair. _Breathe. Breathe._

He dreams of her again, a wolf surrounded by lions, a snow maiden surrounded by white. He dreams of her skin under his, the crease between her brow, the warmth of her around him.

And then he opens his eyes and she is there.

Blue eyes. Red hair. Tears.

“ _Sansa…_ ” Her name carried on a sigh.

He is too weak to move, can barely keep his eyes open. There’s a crackle in the air, a wet bubbling rumble that Petyr thinks is his own breath. Can she hear it too? No, of course not. He is dreaming.

A familiar softness presses against his lips. _Real_. Water on his face, a hand on his cheek.

_Real. Real._

Another brush against his lips, hard and cold this time, and something sweet touches his tongue.

The blackness it brings is different to the rest, light and painless. Petyr goes unwillingly, stares desperately at her face until he’s pulled back under.

52.

Dreams.

She is not in any of them.

_I loved a maid as red as autumn with sunset in her hair._

Petyr is a boy again.

He is a boy of twelve with blind faith in the stories the Blackfish tells them, the stories of Bael, of Aegon the Conqueror, of the Ninepenny Kings. Cat and Lysa feed him mud pies and kiss him beneath the trees. Edmure calls him Littlefinger and they build wooden towers as Lord Hoster writes. A singer visits and Petyr demands he play The Seasons of My Love over and over and over.

Petyr is a boy again and too young to be so deep in his cups.

Uncle Brynden’s arms are around him, and he rests his cheek against the man’s shoulder and tries to steady his stomach, pretends he is a Tully boy, pretends this is truly his uncle. There’s the tug of his boots as Brynden pulls them off, the ruffle of his hair and a heavy sigh.

Is that?

And then Catelyn- is that Catelyn- yes, it must be, it must be- she had not _meant_ to push him away, had not meant her laughter. She is atop him and beneath him, she enjoys his kisses, and Petyr has had too much to drink and he wishes he hadn’t, wishes he could savour this moment, wishes he could see her face a little clearer.

He falls asleep with her name on his lips and wakes to an empty bed.

He wakes to an empty bed until Brandon’s blade comes down and cleaves him in two, and Maester Kym drugs him too much and too often, milk of the poppy that fogs his head and leadens his limbs. Lysa is atop him and beneath him, and he doesn’t want any of it but he is too weak to protest, too poppy-addled to do anything but allow himself to be used, time and time again.

Petyr is a boy again and to be a father- _he’s too young for this isn’t he?-_ and then he is not.

Hoster looks at him with hate. _You don’t know a thing_ , Petyr might say but to what end? Lysa is a sweet girl, a shy maid. Petyr is Petyr. Petyr is a boy and he is bloody and beaten and burning.

Petyr is burning and burning and burning.

53.

He wakes and sleeps and nothing quite makes sense.

Why is he burning?

He is naked and then he is not. Water. Sheets. Hands. All sensations at the very edge of the blackness. That same wet gurgle in the air, the crackling in his throat. Something tugs at his hand and he screams, something strokes his face and he weeps. Everything is burning, every nerve, every hair. Is it possible to feel this much at once? His mind is on fire. Too much. It’s too much. Petyr wants for it to end, wants for an infinite blac-

Her face.

Her face blur into his sight and he calms. He wants her, wants only her.

Cooling hands in his hair, on his face, his neck, his chest. A sweetness on his tongue.

54.

He dreams and this time she is there.

Gods, she is beautiful. There’s snow all around them, in her hair, in his, coating branches around them like reaching fingers. _What do you want?_ She asks and he aches for her, leans in to take her lips. A hand on his chest and she leaves him in the snow.

A blink. He kneels in a great hall and she is judge, jury, and executioner. _Sansa-_ A blade across his throat and his words turn to blood.

She watches his life leave him.

55.

Now when he wakes he recoils from her touch, relishes the hurt in her eyes and presses his face into the pillow, clamps his mouth shut when rough hands seize him.

“Stop! Leave him.” Her voice. How he had longed to hear it and now it slices across his neck.

She will be the death of him. Where is the blade?

_(Tell me, Alayne- which is more dangerous, the dagger brandished by an enemy, or the hidden one pressed to your back by someone you never see?)_

Exhaustion reigns. He hasn’t the strength to resist when she presses another draught to his lips.

This one tastes different. _Sweetsleep_ , he realises, and sighs as it pulls him under.

This time there are no dreams.

56.

Awareness returns to him one shred at a time.

It’s quiet. What else? Softness surrounds him. What else? Bed sheets and a mountain of pillows at his back. It’s warm, uncomfortably so, though he is not wearing a tunic. Petyr can feel the hairs of his chest prickle against the air. What else? What else? His right hand is tightly bound and something holds his wrist. There’s a dampness against his neck and forehead. Wet cloth.

Fever, then. He is being cared for.

Slowly, Petyr tries to pry open heavy eyelids and fails. The skin around his eyes tightens with the effort. He squeezes them shut once, twice, and tries once more.

Daylight.

He hasn’t seen daylight in weeks. No… More? Time had become irrelevant in Winterfell’s dungeon. Pain flares in his head at the brightness of it, and he can’t help but draw in a sharp breath at the sting.

Movement to his left.

Petyr’s ears perk. There’s a fire in the room, he can hear it crackling. Or is that him? He can feel his breath rattle in his chest but the rumbling is quieter. More breathing, not his, soft and steady, to his left.

And more, still, to the right?

Bracing himself, Petyr forces his eyes open and blinks. Blinks. Blinks again. The ceiling comes slowly into focus, timber and stone. There’s something white at the top of his sight, the cloth on his forehead just peeking into periphery.

 _Breathe._ Rattle. Movement again.

Petyr’s eyes flicker left and pain flares in his head. Gods, even his eyeballs ache. He ignores it and sure enough there is someone to his left: Brienne of Tarth, as big and ugly as ever, bedecked in her armour and stood ramrod straight against the wall.

Her face is not as ornery as Petyr remembers when she meets his gaze.

 _To my right?_ He looks slowly this time, first down to himself. He's stripped, as suspected, to the waist and barefoot, resting atop the covers with his gods awful scar on display for all to see. It has company now, bruises across his torso as colourful as Renly’s rainbow guard. How bad had his fever been? They know him to be a private man. It doesn't sit well with him to be laid out so vulnerably.

His gaze moves again. The weight on his wrist is a hand, not shackles as he'd thought, pale and thin. Petyr follows the skin up, past thick clothing, to a full head of hair.

Sansa, asleep beside him.

He’d thought she had been a dream.

Ramsay said he would bring him her head. The fool had been so confident.

She’s so close that Petyr could touch her if he had the strength, but far enough away for propriety, fully clothed and furred for the winter. _Surely she cannot be comfortable. Where is her pillow?_ He turns his head an inch to better look at her.

That familiar ache in his chest… Petyr welcomes it despite all his other pains.

“She’s been by your side since we found you.” Brienne’s voice, soft and quiet, “As much as duty allows.”

They won.

Sansa must be Lady of Winterfell now, Wardeness of the North and leader of thousands. _There’s a good girl._ Sleep brings a peacefulness to her face Petyr has not seen since she'd first come to Kings Landing. The wench speaks again.

“We were expecting a siege,” Brienne says, “Meeting us in the field seemed almost a trap.”

Petyr says nothing. He wets his lips, mouth drier than a virgin in Dorne.

“Ramsay?” A hoarse whisper even he can barely understand.

The wench seems to have understood. “In the cells. He tried to flee after the battle.”

Alive, then. The Bastard likes to make things difficult. A thought suddenly occurs to Petyr. Brienne is studying him carefully when he looks back to her.

“There was a boy… in the cells.”

The woman’s face grows somber, or even more so, mournful eyes flickering away from him and toward the girl resting beside him.

“Rickon Stark. The Bolton bastard shot him down on the field.”

_(I wanted to make you run.)_

_Fuck_. Petyr sags back into the pillows, moves his eyes to the ceiling as he gathers his thoughts. The one thing he could have done to make her happy, truly happy, and he had failed. It was but a simple task. Move Ramsay the Unmovable.

His ribs throb sharply and Petyr grimaces, closes his eyes and slows his breath. _Calm down_. But it is no use; one breath catches in his lungs and a cough bubbles up from his throat, harsh and wet, and before he can control it he has descended into a fit that has him doubled over and wheezing. He can feel his bones crunching with the force. There’s the clank of Brienne striding forward and suddenly a pillow is pressed against his chest.

Petyr clutches it gratefully.

A soft voice to his right speaks. “Brienne. Fetch the Maester, please.”

He can’t bring himself to look at her yet, can only close his eyes and listen to the wench leave, wrestling to bring his breath under control. His lungs are rumbling again. His whole body is tense as a coiled spring. There’s a hand against the burning skin of his back.

“Breathe.” Sansa tells him, “Slowly, Petyr.”

Her hand takes his and he clutches at it, cursing the cumbersome bandage, breathing with each squeeze of her fingers. Gradually the pain lessens. His limbs loosen, his breath slows… He opens his eyes and looks at her sidelong.

The peace has left her face but she is soft still, watching him with open concern, lips quirking into a quick smile when their gazes meet.

Petyr feels suddenly faint. Is he swooning? _Gods be good, pull yourself together, man._ Sansa’s hand is still on his bare back.

No, it’s the fever; he can feel the strength leaving him again.

She pushes him lightly on the shoulder and he obeys the silent command, keeps his eyes intent on her face as she guides him back to the bed. If she’s uncomfortable with his stare she says nothing, only rearranges the pillow at his chest and adjusts his arm to keep it there. He wonders if she’s uncomfortable with him. The last they spoke Petyr had told her too much, expecting to die.

_(I held a knife to his throat. I said-)_

Has she told Brienne? Yohn Royce? Jon Snow?

Petyr watches as she picks up the fallen cloth and stands from the bed, as she rounds the bed to a basin of water, dips the cloth in and wrings it out.

“Maester Wolkan says your fever should break soon enough.” Her voice is as relaxed as if she'd seen him just yesterday.

Petyr is silent. She takes a seat on the bed beside him, close enough her dress brushes his side, and smooths the cloth onto his forehead with careful hands. He could kiss her wrist if he tried but the thought of his dry lips on her skin embarrasses him.

As if sensing his thoughts, Sansa picks up a cup from the bedside table and offers it to him. He squints at the liquid.

“It’s water.” There is no amusement in her Tully eyes.

Petyr brings his own hand to take the cup and she pretends not to notice the tremble, keeps her hands around his as he sips.

“How long,” He begins when she takes the cup away, “How long have I been abed?”

“A week. And you’re to stay abed for another.”

“Why?”

She looks at him as if he's an idiot.

“Maester’s orders. You have the wet-lung, broken ribs, more.” She gestures vaguely at his body, “When was the last time you ate?” His silence does not please her. “I’ll have something brought up.”

A flash of longing grips him and Petyr catches her wrist as she moves away.

“Stay.” He's unashamed of the need in his voice.

She stops, expression softening. _Pity_. It’s not a look Petyr enjoys. Sansa eases his grip from her wrist and for a beat he thinks he has miscalculated, thinks she will leave him now for good, but instead she sits and threads their fingers together. Her thumb brushes gently against his skin, back and forth, back and forth.

It’s a calming feeling.

“Tell me about the battle.” He says, and her look hardens briefly.

“Later.” Is her only reply. Petyr decides not to argue.

She does not pull away when Brienne returns with the Maester.

57.

Petyr refuses any more medicine, milk of the poppy, sweetsleep, or otherwise. Even the sweetmilk is ignored when Maester Wolkan insists. He has spent too long without his wits, he snaps, finally, and nothing more is said of the matter.

Illness has made him irritable.

As promised he is confined to his bed until the fever passes, spending his days a miserable, sweating mess coiled in his sheets. Recovery is slow, and he loses enough weight that Wolkan plies him with potion after potion until Petyr tells Lothor to bar him from the room.

His only reprieve is Sansa.

She has a desk set by his bedside and works while he dozes, drafting plans and composing letters by the daylight. Occasionally, if she catches him watching her, she will ask for advice on some small matter or other, or for the name of some lord she'd forgotten.

“I suspect you already know the answer.” He murmurs one day with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I’ve missed your council.”

“So ask for it.”

She raises her eyebrows over her parchment and studies him for a moment. Petyr supposes he does not cut a sharp figure, rumpled as he is, face half-buried and clutching a pillow to his chest.

“When you’re well.” Sansa says, simply, and turns back to her writing.

At nightfall sleep eludes him, a cruel irony that frustrates him to no end.

It has to do with his company, or lack of it, he suspects, for the tension sets in the moment Sansa bids him farewell. His mind runs over memories, facts, plans, churning the pit in his stomach until he is nauseous with worry. He has been too long out of the game, more than a month.

What moves have been made while he was senseless? What new players, what disposed pieces?

What is Sansa planning?

She finds him in such a state not two mornings after he wakes from his sweetsleep, hunched over a basin at dawn and retching up an empty stomach. At the sound of the door Petyr thinks Lothor has sent for the Maester, but no, there’s the familiar touch on his back and a soft weight beside him. He sets aside the empty basin and accepts water from her with a grateful look. It does little to settle his stomach, but the hand she presses against his forehead works wonders.

“Have you slept at all?” Her eyes are soft with worry but there are the tell-tale furrows of stress across her brow, a tension in her shoulders, even as her hand brushes through his hair and down to the nape of his neck.

“Some.” A lie he allows her to see through. “What news from your bannermen?”

“They gather in the hall today. Mormont, Glover, Cerwyn… Even Manderly made the trip.” She sounds morose.

“And will the Lord Protector of the Vale make an appearance?”

Sansa leans back. “Are you asking for my permission? You _must_ be ill.”

Petyr gifts her with a rare twinkling smile. Her hand moves along his neck and up to his check, thumb brushing across the darkened skin below his eyes.

“You need to rest…” She murmurs, almost to herself, and then, “Lord Royce volunteered as your representative.”

“Oh I am sure he prays to the Seven for my good health.”

No laughter at his jape. Petyr frowns and lifts his hand to hold her wrist.

“You rallied twenty thousand men behind you. What more is a hall?”

Sansa leans forward then and presses her lips to his, draws him into a soft, unhurried kiss, her hand sweeping down to his jaw. When she pulls back, finally, she rests her cool forehead against his. Petyr feels lightheaded.

 _She wants me by her side_. He can see it in her face as clear as anything. The thought fills him with a warmth he hasn’t known in years.

It fills him also with the realisation that Sansa is not so easily read.

“I won’t see you today. Try to rest. And drink the medicine Wolkan brings you or I’ll drug you myself.” She presses a chaste kiss to his lips, and another to his cheek, before she rises and leaves him, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll send a maid up with hot water. You need a bath.”

58.

That night the door to his chambers opens and closes with a muted click. He doesn’t turn, says nothing as the bed dips behind him.

“Gods, you are like a furnace.” Sansa whispers.

Her breath ghosts across his back. She shifts closer, burrows her face into the nook between his neck and shoulder and slings her arm carefully over his waist.

“And yet you move closer.” Petyr quips, even as he pulls her arm tighter around him, bends to kiss her knuckles.

“I’ve never seen you look so miserable as this morning.” Her voice tickles against him, lips ghosting across his skin, “Lothor said you didn’t sleep all day.”

No, he had sat in bed pining for her all day like a lovesick boy, hating himself, his body, and his weaknesses all the while.

“My lady brought me books.” Is his simple answer, “How went your audience?”

She smiles against him.

“You may call me Your Grace from now.”

59.

A week passes and Maester Wolkan deems him well enough to leave his chambers.

The bruises decorate his chest still- Sansa studies them herself as they lie together each morning, looking for changes in colour- and there is a stiffness in his bones, scabs across his back, a shallowness to his breath, but the pain lessens with each day.

His hand will remain bandaged for a while longer, tight around the space where his little finger had been. Petyr is sure to check that his handwriting is unchanged, much to Sansa’s amusement.

On his first outing, she takes him to the crypts.

There is no likeness of Rickon yet but there will be, in time. A wildling woman is laying a circlet of leaves at his tomb when they arrive, Sansa’s arm knitted through his. _Osha_ , Sansa had told him her name is, Rickon’s guardian. The woman leaves quickly and without a word.

“She says Bran is alive.” Sansa whispers in the silence that follows, “Gone North of the Wall with Cranogmen.”

“North of the Wall?”

She releases his arm and moves to the wreath of leaves, crouches to adjust its position.

“He thinks he’s the Three-Eyed-Raven.”

Petyr is lost. He is not well-versed with the North and even less with magic, and he keeps neither the old gods nor the new; there is no room in his plans for them. So for all of his learning this is foreign to him.

Perhaps his mask has slipped, the confusion on his face, because Sansa smiles and takes his hand in hers.

“Have you seen my uncle’s tomb?”

Petyr’s throat is dry. He swallows and shakes his head, no. She places her other hand on his chest and looks at the buttons of his doublet. By now she is well-versed with his scar, he’s sure, every knot of tissue and valley of muscle. Both Sansa and her wench of a bodyguard have seen more of his body in the last two weeks than many have his entire life.

“My father said he was a large man.”

“Larger than me.” The jape is a bitter one.

She steps forward, hand trapped between them, and her nose brushes against his. He feels her breath against his lips when she speaks.

“Small men can cast large shadows.”

60.

She holds his face in her hands, holds his gaze with her bright, Tully eyes.

“Did you love my Aunt?”

“Never.”

A kiss.

“Did you love my mother?”

“Yes.”

Another.

“Do you love me?”

A pause. Petyr draws in enough breath it hurts his chest.

“More than anyone.”


End file.
